Including Might Guy, whom he had been extremely worried about before.
After Shōji awakened the Nine Tomoe Rinnegan himself, the threat he posed had dropped drastically. With the Nine Tomoe Rinnegan, mastery of Sage Mode, and the Dragon Vein's power boosting him, even if Shōji still could not match Rinnegan Madara after becoming the Ten-Tails Jinchuriki, the gap between them definitely was not that great.
But Might Guy definitely did not possess the strength he had during the final battle.
This was not Konoha Year 63.
It was Konoha Year 54!
With a full nine-year gap, Might Guy was only twenty-one or twenty-two at this point. Being able to skillfully wield the Eight Gates Formation was already incredibly impressive. There was no way he could be as polished and effortless as he had been in the Original Work, reaching the level where he could unleash his absolute strongest power!
And this did not refer only to the power of the Eight Gates Formation.
It also meant that Might Guy's own foundational strength was certainly noticeably weaker than it had been during the Original Work's final battle!
To put it more bluntly, the power of the Evening Elephant strike that Might Guy could unleash at this point by opening the Eight Gates at the cost of his life would likely be, at most, only a notch stronger than a full-powered strike from Hashirama Senju or Madara with the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan at their peaks.
In other words, Shōji, going all out, could steadily block Might Guy's full-force attack after opening the Eight Gates!
With the risk greatly reduced and practically within a controllable range, Shōji naturally wanted to maximize the benefits. Just like in the previous war against Kumogakure, Shōji had intended to use one battle to severely cripple Kumogakure as